Mr. Harris was passionately fond of music and art, and wrote treatises upon them, which indicate a more lively and sympathetic nature than would he inferred from the dry philosophy of his other works. His wife moved much in society, and appears to have possessed a similar taste for the fine arts. The best artists of the day were visitors at their house in Salisbury. The family went frequently to the theatre, and in the letters we find critical observations on most of the new dramas of the time. There are two letters from David Garrick, asking permission to bring out at Drury Lane a musical pastoral, called 'Damo and Amyrillis,' which, the editor says, 'was in Mr. Harris's hands,' but which, there seems to us reason to believe, was actually composed by him. As might be expected of a musical family, they attended the concerts and the opera, and by-and-by we read of 'the great house in the Haymarket,' and Italian singers come to the front. Then, as now, the Opera was a perilous venture, and both the managers and singers occasionally came to grief. Of one of the favourite singers of the day we read as follows:-- 'All Manzolini's clothes and finery are seized, and carried to the Custom House, so he has sent a petition to the Lords of the Treasury to have them redeemed. This event diverts Lord North, as he says not one of the Treasury know a note of music, nor care one farthing what becomes of Manzolini, _except Mr. Harris_. He says your father has told so moving a story to Mr. Grenville about it, that he thinks it may affect him.' A close friendship existed between Mr. Harris and Handel, who left him, by will, his portrait, and all his operas in manuscript. The very first letter in this collection has a touching allusion to the great musician, whose intellect had been affected by his labours, and who had become very eccentric. The Countess of Salisbury, a relative of Mr. Harris, writes to him thus (in 1745):-- 'My constancy to poor Handel got the better of my indolence and my propensity to stay at home, and I went last Friday to see the 'Alexander's Feast;' but it was such a melancholy pleasure as drew tears of sorrow, great though unhappy Handel, dejected, wan, and dark, sitting by, not playing on the harpsichord, and to think how his light has been spent by being _overplied in music's cause_. I was sorry, too, to find the audience so insipid and tasteless (I may add unkind) as not to give the poor man the comfort of applause; but affectation and conceit cannot discern or attend to merit.' In the next letter, the Rev. W. Harris writes to Mrs. Harris thus:--